SOURCE: Reeder, Roberta. “The Great Terror: 1930-1939.” In Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet, pp. 211-22. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.

In the following excerpt, Reeder provides a biographical and thematic overview of Anna Akhmatova's career during the composition of her Requiem.

Indeed, Akhmatova had begun to write brilliant poems again. Her “mute” period was over, as the impressions of the many years of quiet suffering finally rose to the surface. Philosophical themes, such as humanity's place in the universe and the role of suffering in the life of those who believe in a benevolent God, now began to play a more dominant role in her work. “In 1936 I began to write again, but my handwriting changed, my voice sounded different, and my life passed under the reins of a Pegasus which somehow reminds one of the apocalyptic White Horse or Black Horse of poems that were yet to...